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| HEALTH TRIBUNE | Wednesday, December 25, 2002, Chandigarh, India |
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Menopausal zone: double embarrassment The power of placebos HOMOEOPATHY & YOU INFO
CAPSULE
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Menopausal zone: double embarrassment The cause of various symptoms in the
menopausal zone is believed to be hormonal changes: a decrease in the
level of estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. Consequently, the
lubricating secretion of different body orifices, especially the urinary
and genital area, also becomes less. This leads to double embarrassment
for the woman, i.e. she loses interest in sex at home and she avoids
public exposure due to her need to go to the toilet again and again.
If she is a working woman the embarrassment gets magnified at her
workplace. Such a woman is put to several unwelcome situations such as
loss of sleep at night and loss of productivity during the day,
withdrawal from sexual intimacy, interruption in important meetings due
to frequent trips to bathroom. She also avoids exercises, looks for
toilet locations, ignores invitations, carries a spare set of garments,
wears dark and baggy clothing to conceal a wetting accident, carries a
bottle for urination, etc. She may silently endure the condition since
neither she nor her family is willing to talk about it, falsely
believing that there is no hope or treatment of the condition. This
stage requires care and attention by the husband and other family
members of the woman, besides her gynaecologist, to keep her in good
health and save her from embarrassment. Supervision of a gynaecologist
will save her from a number of health problems and risks. This will also
give a peep into the health status and bladder control problems of her
husband, which may otherwise be neglected. However, the causes of lack
of control over urination may be different in wife and husband. No
doubt, this is the age at which a comprehensive look into the health of
wife and husband is required. Neglect can mean an unhappy and
uncomfortable living, besides the risk of several serious ailments. If
you live with the bladder control problem, you are like crores of women
and men who suffer silently. There are several different causes, but
none of them is normal in adults, man or woman. Fortunately, all are
amenable to treatment to a variable extent; the exact cause has to be
established by your doctor. Overactive bladder (OAB) is one of them that
entails going to bathroom eight or more times a day, sudden surge to
urinate, loss of urine in garments, etc. This condition is due to the
unintended contraction of the bladder muscle in response to the presence
of urine in the bladder. In men such wetting accidents can be due to
the prostate problem also or a combination of both. In women, the added
cause of a wetting accident can be the weakness of urethral muscles, as
a consequence of pregnancy or menopause. While OAB is a simple medical
condition that can be treated with oral medicines, menopause will
require attention by a gynaecologist, as women approach their middle age
(40 to 58 years). When you have the problem of urinary control due to
OAB or other causes, you need not feel helpless or suffer from a
fatalistic attitude. Your doctor will be able to diagnose the underlying
cause of your symptoms and administer treatment, generally medical,
occasionally surgical. If the underlying cause is menopause, your
consultant will give you counselling as well as investigate any
associated symptoms and conditions. At this age most women start
suffering from many more unwelcome symptoms, viz. hot flushes, mood
swings, irritability, lack of concentration, lack of decision-making
power, lack of sleep, night sweats, etc. More importantly, with the
advent of menopausal age, the incidence of actual heart disease and
fractures due to bone-weakening also rise manifold. Fortunately, there
is nothing inevitable about this suffering, since awareness and
preventive measures and treatment with the hormonal replacement therapy
(HRT) and other methods can prevent the development of such problems in
a large percentage of possible sufferers. The best time to make the
first visit to your gynaecologist is at the onset of perimenopause — a
few years before the menses stop. If your urinary problem is becoming
too much, she will examine you thoroughly and order investigations to
establish the cause or causes. Once the cause is found, it would be
easier to give treatment. In the case of a male if the cause is OAB, the
treatment for prostate, medicines or surgery will not help. Similarly,
if the cause is menopause, treatment for a urinary infection or stress
will not work and vice-versa. Besides medicines, you may require bladder
training, exercises, psychotherapy, etc. While starting with a specific
therapy, she will give advice about the essentials of diet, exercises,
yoga, joining of a self-help group or a menopause club, etc. Her
counselling would cover not only physical aspects but also emotional and
social aspects. You are welcome to surf the site
www.gomcochandigarh.com for frequently asked questions and their
answers. You are also free to ask any questions at menopausehelpline@gomcochandigarh.com.
You are welcome to join the menopause helpline club without paying any
membership fee. The writer is Senior Gynaecologist and SMO in charge
of Civil Dispensary, Sector 20, Chandigarh, and author of "Better
Woman’s Health after Menopause".
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The power of placebos LONDON:
The seemingly miraculous tablet is a fake medicine, a totally
inert sugar or starch pill, designed only to deceive us into believing
we are receiving a genuine treatment. Dummy medicines — called
placebos — are used in clinical trials to test a drug or other
remedy against an inactive control. They are given out randomly, with
neither patients nor doctors knowing who receives the active medicine.
Yet fake remedies work so well in many trials that researchers are now
beginning to explore how this powerful force might be harnessed to
improve mainstream medicine. The "placebo effect" has
mystified doctors for years. Numerous studies have shown that fake
pills, dummy therapies, and even simulated surgery, work as well as
the genuine article for many illnesses. A landmark report in the USA
in 1955 found that one in three people will recover from a range of
conditions simply through taking placebos. Fake surgery has been
shown to help angina, Parkinson’s disease and arthritis. In June,
doctors in Houston reported in the New England Journal of Medicine
that patients with arthritis of the knee were successfully treated
just as well with pretend surgery — just small incisions into the
knee — as with one of the most common operations for the
condition. Fake psychotherapy, pretend acupuncture and sham
injections are all remarkable success stories, too. Placebo medicines
have proved to be wonder drugs for pain relief, asthma, depression and
the common cold. And placebo complementary therapies, from fake Ginkgo
biloba to dummy homoeopathic potions, also appear to work as well as
their genuine equivalents. Indeed, many sceptics believe complementary
medicines only work through a placebo response. The Guardian
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Adolescence and depression Dr Vikas Sharma
"HELP ME" read the note. He pasted it on
a fourth-floor window, before killing 17 and himself at a school in
Germany. Robert Steinhaeuser, a 19-year-old, had been expelled by the
school and apparently sought revenge. Armed with a pump-gun and a
pistol, he went into the school and started to shooting randomly.
Priya (not her real name), till a few years ago, was a happy and a
playful young one. She is 16 and is not attending school. Affording
education isn’t the problem for her parents. "After the death
of her father she is not able to cope with the pressures of
life", says her mother. Priya suffers from depression. Worst of
all, last year, she nearly committed suicide. Although,
geographically and symptomatically poles apart, Priya and Robert
suffered from the same illness. If only their parents or teachers had
recognised those early signs of depression, surely, their situation
wouldn’t have been so catastrophic. Every adult remembers that
adolescence is marked by rapid emotional, intellectual, and physical
change. So, when a teenager seems depressed, parents, schools, and
health providers often attribute the signs of depression to "just
a phase the teen is going through" and expect her or him "to
grow out of it." However, many teenagers, at a given time, do
suffer from major depression, which may lead to suicide, impair
development and quality of life, cause conduct problems and, in some
cases, may be related to violent behaviour. Depression can be a
transient response to many situations and stresses. In adolescents,
depressed mood is common because of the normal maturation process, the
stress associated with it, the influence of sex hormones, and
independence conflicts with parents. It may also be a reaction to a
disturbing event, such as the death of a friend or relative, problems
with a boyfriend or girlfriend, or failure at school. Homoeopathy
has one of the best treatments for adolescence depression. It is a
highly evolved system when the treatment is to be based on mind
symptoms. It goes far beyond the conventional system, Homoeopathic
medicines are able to flush out the impressions created in minds by
stressful events. It has specific medicines for symptoms of depression
arising out of different situations — situations as varied as the
loss of a loved one, indignation, domination by peers, sexual abuse,
etc. It would treat both Robert and Priya (the above mentioned
patients) as two different cases. Robert would be taken as a case
"of suppressed anger with violence", and Priya’s case as
depression arising from the "loss of a loved one" whereby
the prescription would be different for both of them. Homoeopathic
medicines like natrum mur, staphysgaria, lycopodium, ignatia, nux
vomica and carcinocin are some of the important ones often used in
treating depression. Psychotherapy and counselling also have a major
role to play in the treatment of adolescent depression The writer
is a Chandigarh-based homoeopath. His contact numbers 0172-721501,
M-870739.
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INFO
CAPSULE NICOSIA: Israeli researchers have stated that instead of searching for a kidney donor, it could now be possible that one might be able to grow a new kidney, thus offering a solution to the shortage of kidney donors. Researchers led by Prof Yair Reisner of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot have grown a miniature human kidney inside a mouse. They said that although the kidney was tiny, it was functional, suggesting that patients suffering from organ failure might be able to grow replacements. The findings, published in Nature Medicine, said that the cells were taken from human and pig foetuses and transplanted into mice where they grew into perfect kidneys, the size of mice kidneys.
ANI Garlic for prostate cancer BEIJING:
A new study has revealed that a daily serving of allium group of vegetables like garlic, scallions, onions, leeks and chives may help protect against the development of prostate cancer, according to reports published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Researchers from the National Cancer Institute in the USA and the Shanghai Cancer Institute recruited 238 men with prostate cancer and 471 healthy men (who served as the control, or comparison group). All of them completed a questionnaire that recorded their intake of allium vegetables over the previous five years. They found substantially less risk of prostate cancer among the men who ate more than 10 grams of these vegetables a day, when compared with those who ate less than 2.2 grams/day. Of these vegetables, garlic and scallions appeared to have the most protective effect.
ANI Vitamin B deficiency WASHINGTON: Researchers at the Rush-Presbyterian-St Luke’s Medical Center, Chicago, have suggested that people with a low intake of Vitamin B niacin have an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Studies in animals have showed that lack of niacin can damage brain cells. Now the researchers have uncovered a potential link between the vitamin deficiency and the disease in a group of older people.
ANI Loss of weight and heart WASHINGTON:
A new research in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition has stated that when overweight people lose even a modest amount of weight, significant cardiac benefits are possible. Researchers in Scotland studied 49 people with an average age of 60, who were overweight and who had a history of angina (chest pain). For 12 weeks, the subjects (who lived at home and ate their own food) followed dietary advice to cut their food intake by 600 calories daily, and consume at least 50 per cent of their calories from carbohydrates and less than 35 per cent from fat and 20 per cent from protein. The subjects did not participate in any form of physical activity to lose weight.
ANI British ban on herbal tranquilliser LONDON: Remedies containing the herb Kava-kava, used as a natural tranquilliser and as an alternative to Valium, have been banned after it was linked to four deaths. A year ago, it was voluntarily removed from the shelves after almost 70 cases of suspected liver damage associated with the herbal medicine were reported, four in the UK. Seven patients needed liver transplants. However, complementary health campaigners have protested against a complete ban, saying Kava-kava has none of the addiction problems associated with conventional tranquillisers like Valium.
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